finding a tomorrow
by TamariChan
Summary: Yesterday is long gone and today is rushing by too quickly, so all they can do is make a tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe, they will be happy there. / Lucy&Zacharias, a collection.
1. i

**Disclaimer (applies to entire collection): The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling.  
**

**Written for the OTP Boot Camp Challenge at HPFC.  
**

****-:-

**i. i've heard there was a secret chord**

Her lips taste of despair, acrid and harsh and salty.

Her nails dig into his shoulders and he feels her trembling quicken. He has to wrap his arms around her to keep her from falling to her knees as she dissolves into grief and there's nothing to do but hold her.

"No, no, no," she says. She releases him and tries to take a step, to walk on her own, but her legs buckle and he has to catch her.

"Lucy," he whispers. "I've got you, I'm here."

And the chasm of loss looms over both of them, impenetrable and eternal and tinged with anguish and the acrid taste of a kiss. He traces her collarbone with a finger and they breathe in, breathe out, breathe.

"Don't let go, Zacharias," she says softly, and so he doesn't.


	2. ii

**Written for the OTP Boot Camp Challenge at HPFC. (I'm writing the prompts in order, in case you're wondering.)  
**

**Some of the drabbles will be set in the same universe, and some won't be.  
**

****-:-

**ii. that david played and it pleased the lord**

"Let me go!" Lucy shrieks with wild eyes, bent double and straining against his grip on her waist, her fingers clawing hopelessly at the air.

"Please, calm down," he says just as hopelessly, "you can't- it won't help anything. It's not anyone's fault."

"Yes it is, Zacharias!" She whirls to face him and crumples against his chest. "Molly wouldn't-" she says in a muffled voice. "She wouldn't have just left me- not without a note, or something, or _something_- not Molly."

"Darling, you don't know that," he says into her red-orange hair.

"It must've been Dad's fault," she says. "It must've been."

He sighs and it ruffles her hair. "Not everything goes wrong because of him."

"I know," she whispers, burrowing her head deeper into his chest. "But it's easier to believe that it does."


	3. iii

**Written for the OTP Boot Camp Challenge. I'm writing the prompts in order. :)  
**

****-:-

**iii. but you don't really care for music, do you?**

He plays the piano.

{everything from Beethoven to Mozart and it's all flawless, and Lucy can only marvel}

She thinks that's amazing.

{what he can craft with just his own hands and ivory keys – it's beautiful, it's so beautiful that Lucy can't breathe and all she can do is watch him}

He disagrees.

{it's nothing, he insists, he's not any good, it's just another thing his parents made him learn}

But she is used to that.

{she asks him to please please believe her, to understand the magic in his hands and heart and soul pouring into her own}

He doesn't understand.

{maybe he can't}

But for her, he keeps playing.

{and it leaves her absolutely breathless}


	4. iv

**iv. it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth**

Lucy Weasley never knew what it was to be truly battered (battered wife, they say, like that same battered wife can't hear); to be broken down into tiny tiny pieces; to search for herself like a lost contact lens, just as desperately and just as hopelessly.

But Lucy McLaggen does.

It starts slowly. A poke of her ego here, a snap of her self-assurance, but it's nothing nothing nothing (she tells herself). It starts slowly, but it's relentless.

"You cheated on me," her husband says dangerously, and she shakes her head.

_no, never, I wouldn't, couldn't, I don't deserve you anyway_

And at the time she is not lying.

But time goes on and so does Lucy's fear and Zacharias Smith doesn't know her secrets but he _wants _to know. And not so he can mock her, or manipulate her later, but because he wants to help.

_help, help, help_

And it, too, is slow and relentless, but Zacharias saves her in the end.


	5. v

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. The titles of the fics are taken from lyrics of Leonard Cohen's ****_Hallelujah_****.**

**v. the minor fall, the major lift**

There is no one moment when Lucy realizes she is happy.

There is no epiphany, no dramatic moment when she looks off into the wind and says, "I will _never_ be miserable again!"

Instead, it's a thousand little things.

It's just Lucy and it's just Zacharias, and it's that warm glow in her chest (contentment, her mother says, but Lucy doesn't know). It's flitting about in the kitchen making lopsided cookies, it's the way he kisses the top of her head, it's how Percy smiles a tight smile and hugs his son-in-law for the first time.

He doesn't mind that she hums Celestina Warbeck songs while she eats, and she doesn't mind that he scowls when he's thinking hard.

He has nightmares sometimes, and she's there, whether it's midnight or four a.m., with a cool cloth and soft eyes and murmurs of "it's okay, it's over". She's there in the calm too, with laughter and smiles and ever eager to dance.

There is no one moment when Lucy realizes she is happy.

But she is.


	6. vi

**vi. the baffled king composing hallelujah**

She holds the photo in her hand- carelessly, flippantly, like nothing matters.

(Like _they _don't matter)

Zacharias watches her with guarded features, traces of emotion hidden deep in his eyes.

(She can't see that far)

"Tell me, darling," and her whisper is harsh and mocking, "what I should do with these."

In a guttural, pleading voice, he says, "Lucy, please, you _know_."

(What is unseen is much more frightening)

She laughs, just as harsh, just as mocking. "I know that you love her. You don't need me, darling, I'll take my leave."

His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.

(_But_, he wants to say, _you don't know_)

She tears the photo in tiny pieces that flutter to the floor with wings of ash. "Enjoy your life with her, whoever she is," Lucy says, turning to walk out the door.

Zacharias stoops to pick up the remains of the photo.

(The carcass of not one relationship, but two)

A piece of the picture blows away in the slight breeze from the overhead fan, a quirk of a dimple and a shining blue eye.

(Lavender Brown)

"She's dead," he says to no one. "She's gone."

(There is so much that Lucy does not know- but she imagines that she does)


	7. vii

**vii. hallelujah**

He used to be an artist.

Now, Lucy is sketched everywhere he looks.

The curve of a birch is the curve of her shoulder. A mockingbird releases her laugh and it echoes and echoes against the sharp line of the horizon, the sharp line of her brow.

Zacharias tries to draw again after she leaves. He tries pastels, charcoal, pencils, paint- anything and everything. But still lifes of oranges turn into wild orange hair, and a watercolor of a lake becomes a blue eye with lashes of cattails.

_You miss her_, his pen says, and even as he angrily casts another sketchpad away, he can see it smirk. _You miss her so much you don't know what to do with yourself._

He slumps against an easel and takes a shaky breath, then another, then another. "Why did you have to leave," he says, and there is no one to answer so it is not really a question.

He used to be an artist, but now he is nothing.

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling.**

**Congratulations to the winners of The Cross-Gen Competition!  
Check out their stories for wonderfully-written cross-gen fics:**

_3rd place- Cause even the stars, they burn_ by **lightweights**

_2nd place- Shadows of the Past_ by **AllIKnowIsADoorIntoTheDark**

_1st place- Nargles at Christmastime_ by **wynnebat**

**Check the link on my profile for the full list of entries. Thanks for reading and please review!**


	8. viii

_Disclaimer: Not mine. See previous disclaimers for more details. We're up to number 8, 'sin'._

**viii. your faith was strong but you needed proof**

She thinks that she may be in love with him.

But when she thinks too much about it, her hands start to shake and she can't stop touching her hair and she can't breathe.

It shouldn't be so frightening, should it? But Zacharias is everything that's wrong with her and everything's that's right. Everything about him makes her want to cry- with happiness or grief or something else, she doesn't know, and that's the problem.

It's another summer day for them, sitting leisurely on a bench in Diagon Alley and drinking cold coffee. His blond hair shines in the sunlight and she wants to run her fingers through it.

"Zacharias," she says abruptly, breaking their lazy silence. "Is it wrong?"

"Is what wrong?"

"For me to love you." She puts her cup aside to hide the trembling in her hands.

He is quiet for a moment. Eventually he reaches out and stills her hands. "Lucy," he says, "I don't know if it's wrong, honestly, at least not from a moral view. But sin- sin doesn't feel like this. Sin feels... _sinful_, guilty, a guilty pleasure. This is just love."

"You love me?" Lucy says, looking at him.

He smiles sadly. "Of course I do. Don't think I haven't thought about this too. All I can think is if people say this is wrong, well, I don't give a damn."

And he kisses her, right there in Diagon Alley.

**Thanks for reading and please review!**

**Check out the winners of The Cross-Gen Competition, and if you have time, read their amazing fics.**

**Second place was AllIKnowIsADoorIntoTheDark for ****_Shadows of the Past_**

**First place was wynnebat for ****_Nargles at Christmastime_**


	9. ix

**Consider this disclaimed.**

**ix. you saw her bathing on the roof**

They used to only fit together with liberally applied glue- whispers in the dark and lots of secrets. Falling in love with a coworker (or a client) was tricky even for the lucky ones. And Lucy, for one, was never lucky.

Zacharias was the classic story of a comeback, a plain soldier turned Minister's assistant turned Wizarding music star.

If Lucy was a classic anything, it was a downfall. The Head Girl became a shop girl became a call girl (and maybe, secretly, a singer).

She still doesn't know how she got caught up in that audition, but he saw her- really _saw _her- even in her miniskirt and stilettos. Next thing she knew, their voices were on the wireless and his hand fit perfectly in hers and there was a red carpet somewhere and flashing lights and nowhere in there did she think about going back to her old career.

On the night of the biggest gala of the year, he whispered that maybe, secretly, he'd fallen in love with her and not to ruin their professional relationship or anything, but would she like to marry him?

She whispered that she would, unable to conceal her smile. The pictures in Witch Weekly were quite lovely, she thought later, in spite of her dazed grin.

After that, of course, they didn't need secrets.

**Check out _wynnebat_'s Nargles at Christmastime for an adorable cross-gen friendship piece, which won first prize in my competition!**


	10. x

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. Prompt for this one is "enamoured".  
**

**x. her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you**

"Hey, sweetie pie, you made it!"

Zacharias still thinks it's crazy that her eyes light up like that just from seeing _him_. Before he can say hello, he's pulled through the door and into the kitchen.

"Sweetie pie, you'll be nice to my parents, won't you?" She looks at him with big pleading eyes and he sighs.

"I'll try, Lucy. But could you please, please stop calling me sweetie pie? It's ruining my reputation," he says, half-serious but with softened eyes to let her know he's not mad.

"Of course," she agrees with a giggle. "All that street cred you get from being the Minister's assistant, I'm just wrecking it! No one will think you're tough now."

"Shut up," he says, laughing.

Lucy gives the door to the parlor a lingering glance.

"It'll be fine," Lucy says, but he's unsure whether she's talking to him or herself. She steps up on her tiptoes to smooth down the top of his hair and lays her head on his shoulder for a moment.

"I'm so in love with you," he says, the words slipping out as he looks down at her. He almost takes them back- it's the first time he's said that he loved any girl- but he means them.

Her eyes light up again. "I'm so in love with you, too," she says and then grins. "Sweetie pie."


	11. xi

**Disclaimed. Here's the last fluff before angst ahead!**

**xi. she tied you to a kitchen chair**

Boing!

"Boing!"

She twists around and raises her eyebrows at him. "_What_are you doing?"

"Playing with your hair. Why, does it bother you?"

She makes a face at him. "It wouldn't, if you didn't make that sound effect every time you did it!"

"Yeah, sorry." His grin makes him look younger.

Lucy huffs and smacks his hand away as he tries to boing her hair again. "Honestly, Zacharias, I'm not a toy! Go ask Victoire and Teddy for some extra. I'm sure they'd love to share."

He heaves a dramatic sigh. "Their daughter is so cute. I wish _I _had a kid." He looks at her with the puppy eyes he must have learned from Molly.

"_Fine_, you can boing my hair!" She throws up her hands. "I don't see why it's so fascinating-"

"It's part of you, that's why."

She can't stop an "aww" from escaping and turns to kiss him

Her hair goes boing! one more time, and then his hands are tangled in it instead.


	12. xii

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. Prompt this time is **_**fear**_**.**

**xii. she broke your throne, she cut your hair**

There is no Third Wizarding War.

But there _are_ vicious political campaigns, incidents of bigotry disguised as patriotism, rumors that tear reputations, and least importantly there is Lucy in the middle with fear tinting her eyes.

She is the Minister's daughter, and so she is a public figure, and so it is perfectly legal for the Wizarding World to mock her and hurt her and scrape her to bits.

(She's not pretty enough - too free with affection, if you know what I mean - vote out Percy Weasley, how can he manage Britain if he can't manage his own family?)

Lucy hides her orange hair in a beret and layers gloss onto her lips like it can protect her from the venom the magazines spew. It doesn't.

(But her father's reelection will go fine, it will go fine, as long as the media doesn't find out anything that's _really_ scandalous...)

They find out.

"Zach's not like that anymore, he's changed, we love each other!" she insists, and Zacharias backs her up as best he can, but they're helpless and it's useless. She's just Lucy in the middle with eyes full of fear, least important but most damning, scared of everything and nothing.

(And maybe she's always known that she would be the one to drag everything and everyone down, but that doesn't make it hurt less.)

"It's not your fault," Zacharias says, but her father's expression when he looks at her says more.


	13. xiii

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, and the lyrics of _Hallelujah_ belong to Leonard Cohen. This is prompt 'hatred'.  
**

**xiii. and from your lips she drew the hallelujah**

His laugh is mocking. "Who are _you_, Weasley? You can't tell me what to do- you don't even have the right to speak to me."

To her shame, hot tears start to well up in her eyes. She blinks them away hurriedly, but he notices.

"Merlin, Weasley, you're a mess, aren't you? Best get yourself taken care of, away from me if you please." The youngest Minister in a century gives her a disgusted look, like he can barely stand to be even this near to her.

"Zacharias, what happened? You used to be-" She doesn't know what to say. He used to be different. Everything used to be different.

"You used to be strong. You're not anymore. Don't expect me to stay the same forever if you can't do it, either."

"I hate you," she says, because there's nothing to say and she's Lucy Weasley.

"I don't care," he says, and the indifference on his face is what makes her finally break down and cry.

When she gains control of herself again, he's long gone.


	14. xiv

**Disclaimer: Not mine. See prev. disc. for details. Prompt this time is "helpless"**

**xiv. hallelujah**

He can do absolutely nothing, and it's killing him.

He crumples into the grass and breathes so fast it's like he's not breathing at all. Everything's a mess and he wants to go home and oh god god merlin he needs to pull it together.

"Lucylucylucylucy_lucy_." And the dew in the grass clings to his mouth as he moans into the ground through his rapid breaths. "Wanna go _home_."

Zacharias looks up and there she is, of course, staring at him with those blueblueblue eyes like he's lost his mind. Maybe he has.

"You _are _home," Lucy says ohsohesitantly.

"I can't-" he starts to say, but oh god god merlin this isn't Lucy, she's not the same anymore. How can she be? How can anything be okay? "I can't do _anything, _didn't do _anything_. Supposed to take care of you."

"I didn't ask you to," she says. "I just asked you to be here." She falls beside him in the cold, wet grass and wraps her arms around his neck. His breathing slows, too slow, and he's not crying because men don't cry, right?

"That man hurt you," he says. "I didn't save you. Failed, again. Always a failure."

"No, no, please don't."

He's not even sure what she wants, but her arms are so tight around him and she's shivering so he holds her just as tightly. With Lucy, he's home, even if everything's notnotnot okay.


	15. xv

**Disclaimed. This prompt is "indifference".**

**xv. maybe i have been here before**

"He doesn't _care_," Lucy says, "what happens to me."

"Of course he does. He's your father."

Zacharias is sitting cross-legged on the floor, distractedly winding Lucy's curls from her position with her head in his lap. He runs a finger over her creased brow.

Lucy sighs. "It's always like this. He just doesn't give a damn."

Zacharias doesn't know what to say. Sarcasm won't work, not with Lucy. And that's all he's good at, really.

"Well, I love you, if that counts for anything."

Lucy smiles just a little bit. "Oh, Zacharias. Don't mind me. I complain a lot, but you know. It doesn't really matter that much, in the end, because _I_ don't matter that much."

"You matter to me," he says seriously.

"Well, if _you_ care about me, I must be worth something."

He wants to argue. He wants to say that Lucy's got it all wrong. He wants to say that her father loves her and isn't indifferent to her like she thinks.

But he doesn't say anything, because he promised months ago that he'd never lie to her.


	16. xvi

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter are J.K's, not mine. Prompt is "silence is golden".**

******xvi. i know this room, i've walked this floor**

They say nothing.

The Great Hall looks different to both of them. The last time he saw it, well... he doesn't want to go back to that. This time there are no bodies, no cracked stones and crumbling archways, no sharp gems scattered on the cobblestones.

The last time she saw it was at her graduation, which has a rather different connotation than Zach's memory.

(It's just another of the differences between them, written by the war and cemented by age and status and a million other things. Lucy erases the differences as best she can, with soft smiles and a wicked Bat-Bogey hex for anyone who dares insult Zach, but doing the best she can isn't always enough.)

She starts to say something.

He shakes his head at her and squeezes her hand, and they sit in silence at the twentieth anniversary of the Last Battle.


	17. xvii

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter are J.K. Rowling's, not mine. Prompt now is "jagged".**

**xvii. i used to live alone before i knew yo****u**

"It's been a long time," Zacharias says.

She knows. Her heart still sports its jagged, broken edges like a badge of shame.

"I really am sorry," he says, running his fingers through his blonde hair as he often does when he's nervous, or sad, or emotional at all. "I just needed a break."

He's not the type to think things through, like a Ravenclaw, or the type to charge ahead anyway, like a Gryffindor, or the type to sneak through, like a Slytherin. He's a Hufflepuff, and he either quits when things get rough or he keeps going even if everything goes to hell.

Lucy's a Hufflepuff too, but she's not the same kind.

"It could have worked out," she says. "I would have kept trying. I would have given you everything you asked."

"I'm sorry," he says again, like that is all he can say. Maybe it is.

She turns away and her red hair falls over her face. She doesn't clutch at her chest, even though the jagged edges of her heart burn and make her nauseous, because she has shown him enough pain.

"I'll be all right without you," she says.

He doesn't disagree.


	18. xviii

**Disclaimed. Prompt "jubilant".**

**xviii. i've seen your flag on the marble arch**

"We did it," Lucy said. Her heart was aflame with victory and she was so excited she could not even smile. "We did it!"

Zacharias reached out to shake her hand, but she flung herself at him instead.

"We did it," she repeated, half-crying into him. He didn't say anything, even though he usually would have, because it _had_ been so long and they'd worked so hard and Lucy especially.

People had asked both of them what werewolves and house elves and _creatures_ meant to them, and people had scoffed and mocked Lucy and him and their team, but Lucy had never stopped, never, not even when Zacharias had started to lose steam.

Not even when rumors about the two of them had circulated, and her family had been angry, and her friends had been disgusted. Not even then.

He set her down and leaned his forehead into hers. She stared up at him, blue eyes wide and the start of that smile tugging her mouth..

"We did it," he said, and grinned.


	19. xix

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter are J.K's, not mine. Prompt is "kindly".**

**xix. love is not a victory march**

"You're too nice to me," Zacharias says.

She crinkles her eyebrows. "Is that even a thing?"

They're sitting on the couch, Lucy's legs draped over the arm of the opposite side so her head can rest in his lap. She's painting her nails a soft baby blue.

"You know," she says, "is that possible? _I_ don't think so. Everybody should just be kind to everybody and then everything will be all right." She makes a sweeping gesture with the hand holding the polish brush.

He dodges. "That's..."

"Naive?" Lucy caps the polish and looks up at him. "Daddy always says so, too. But I prefer to think of myself as _idealistic_ - it has a better ring to it."

He almost snorts, but doesn't. He smiles instead and twists one of her red curls.

"So it does," he says obligingly. Zacharias is very rarely obliging, but he knows something Percy Weasley doesn't.

It's not fair to judge Lucy because of what she did not have to live through.


	20. xx

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Tortall are J.K.'s, not mine. This is with prompt "killing". **

**xx. it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah**

There is nothing but blood.

It's on her hands and in her heart, staining her robes and her shoes and her eyes that stare blankly ahead. Somebody is screaming but she is numb and there is only blood, red stains in her eyes.

He shakes her.

"Lucy, look at me!" he shouts. "Look at me, that's an order, damn it!"

He's her superior officer, an Auror with much more experience, so she does look at him.

"Get a grip," Zacharias says, not gently. "Get a grip and hang on, because this isn't the worst you'll see and you'd better get used to it. Merlin, girl!"

He shouts out as Lucy sways, and he catches her as she falls, and there is blood all over his hands too now.

"This is my fault." She clutches his arm tightly and looks at the ground. "I led them here."

She looks so lost and young and Zacharias is acutely aware of the blood all around them. Suddenly there's nothing he wants more than to reassure her, which isn't good at all. He has to stay professional.

"Just focus on the job," he says gruffly, and releases her.

The next time he sees Lucy, she's clean and smiling and looking gorgeous in a uniform with her hair in a flawless bun - but he can see the dullness in her eyes.

Seeing a first mass murder is a rite of passage for Aurors, he knows that, but it aches to see vibrant, cheerful Lucy so broken.

So he doesn't look at her anymore.


	21. xxi

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter are J.K's, not mine. Prompt is "lost".**

******xxi. hallelujah**

She's drowning.

The air in her lungs is hot and dry, scorching her throat until she cannot speak, but she's drowning nonetheless. She needs to say something, make herself known in all her trembling shaking glory to the utterly oblivious Zach, but she doesn't.

Lucy closes the door to his office and walks a few steps away, that numb, halting step of the lost. The carpet of his waiting room is beige, and so are the walls, and so are the people sitting in stiff-backed chairs and _staring_ at her.

But she knows her eyes are dry.

Zach's secretary – a girl a few years above Lucy and a Gryffindor, not a (weak) Hufflepuff – smirks at Lucy.

"Oh, poor dear," Julie says in a low snide tone. "But then, you must have known? Who would settle for a naive little girl when they could have a _woman_ like Parvati Patil?"

Lucy's eyes flick back to the closed door, but her drowning burning lungs won't let her answer. She shakes her head at the ground and leaves. Stumbling through corridors isn't much better than standing paralyzed, but at least there's no one to watch.

Only statues see her lose herself in the winding floors, looking for the girl who was a Minister's daughter, not a Minister's plaything. All she finds in the polished bronze replica of her uncle is herself.

And that's not good enough.


	22. xxii

**Disclaimer: The world and characters of Harry Potter are J.K's, not mine. Prompt is "listless".**

**xxii. there was a time you let me know**

They don't talk anymore.

He'll come in and kiss her hello and she'll smile. She might tell him dinner's on the table and he might show her the books he bought her on the way home from work. Once in a while, she'll say something about the weather or he'll mention a mutual friend of theirs who owled. But they don't _talk._

He works long nights at the Ministry and she writes into the early morning. Even when there's a break in their hectic lives, they're far too tired to do anything but sleep and sleep and sleep. They don't talk.

Lucy thinks maybe she's boring him; maybe she's always been too young. Zacharias thinks maybe she's found someone else; maybe he's always been too old. Age hangs between them like a curtain, dank and heavy. All the things that brought them together, all the thoughts they had in common, all the laughs and tears and warmth... they fade away in the listless silence.

But Lucy and Zach are expert pretenders, and if there's nothing wrong, there's nothing to talk about.

Right?


End file.
